Monday, March 26, 2018

Staunton, March 26 – Protests by
residents in Volokolamsk about a dump in their neighborhood and the reaction of
the authorities to those protests provide like an x-ray a picture of the real
as opposed to declarative nature of the Russian political system, according to
the editor of Yekaterinburg’s PolitSovet news
portal.

Everyone has seen
the pictures of the crowd attacking the local officials who it turned out did
not initially find anything to say in response. “A few hours later,” the
editors say, “the authorities all the same reacted to the protest,” first by
firing the head of the district and then by forming “a social staff which will
be involved in resolving the trash problems.”

That body – and it could have been
called a committee or something else – includes representatives of the
protesters, members of the Social Chamber, human rights activists, ecology
ministry officials, and the governor’s special representative for ecological
issues, they continue.

“And so what do we see? The
authorities are creating a special organ … to which representatives of local
residents who have certain demands are invited to take part.”In fine, the editors continue, what they have
come up with is “something like a negotiating group between two sides in
conflict.”

That points to two conclusions about
“how the Russian authorities work and how they conceive themselves” and their
relationship to the population.

On the one hand, “not one of the
existing institutions which are supposed to allow for feedback between the authorities
and the people works.”Not the
parliament, not the social chamber, not anything. Instead, “at critical
moments,” the powers that be have to come up with an “extraordinary” measure to
do what the ordinary ones are not.

And on the other, all this shows
that “the authorities from the outset do not consider themselves to be
representatives of the people,” from whom their powers are supposed to derive.
Instead, “they conduct themselves like external administrators who solve their
own tasks and problems” instead of those of the people.

“When the subordinates suddenly
refuse to be subordinate … then the authorities first fall into a stupor and
begin to conduct themselves” not as representatives of the people but as “an
alien force” which attempts to calm things down by conducting negotiations with
those who oppose them.

As a result of this point of view,
PolitSovet says, there is now “a negotiating group in which there are
representatives of two alien and conflicting sides – the authorities and the
people.” And that in turn, the editors suggest, creates problems “not only for
the population but for the authorities.”

“The people need them so that the
bureaucrats will know about the demands of the people and the authorities in
turn need them so that in meeting with the people they will not be hit in the
face. But in Russia,” unfortunately, “up to now the reverse is what is taking
place.”